


The Woodpecker

by Anonymous



Series: 100 starker fics [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magic, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Ottoman AU, Slavery, court intrigue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:16:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29830347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: In which Tony is an Ottoman Imperial Prince and Peter is the heir of a Venetian merchant prince, recently abducted by slavers. They meet at a court where nothing is what it seems like.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Series: 100 starker fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746880
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Anonymous





	The Woodpecker

**Author's Note:**

> I know the names don't fit the setting but there's an in-fic reason for that. Also, more tags are coming with every new chapter in the interest of not spoiling the whole thing right away.

Peter keeps shaking and stumbling all the way up the steps from the hold, down the length of the deck, and across the plank towards the quay. His arms are tied behind his back, which makes it harder to keep his balance. He keeps wishing to push the hair off his eyes, just like days ago he wished he could wipe off his tears before they dried up. But the slavers won't untie him, not after Peter bit one of them on the neck with his sharp white teeth. Ironically, they are probably one of the reasons Peter was considered such precious cargo.

The slavers poke and prod him with their sticks up a stair cut into the side of a cliff, and Peter goes, lightheaded and disoriented by the bright light of the torches after the days of dusk in the hold. It occurs to him the men are anxious to be rid of him. They probably decided his value would only lower with time - he refused to eat and to cooperate, and they couldn't force him to without lowering his market value even more.

He found that out from their conversation, because the slavers don't know he understands Turkish, and Peter certainly isn't volunteering the information. Uncle Ben's idea to learn, of course, he always said a merchant should be able to speak all the languages he hoped to make a bargain in. At the thought of Uncle Ben, Peter has to grind his teeth together viciously so he won't tear up again. Uncle Ben is no more. He can't pay Peter's ransom, or make sure Aunt May's family doesn't put their hands on the Parker fortune. Peter being abducted is probably a gift from the heavens in their estimation. Even his captors realize this, and there was no talk of Peter writing letters back to Venice.

Though there was a lot of talk about a man named Jarvis, who the slavers hope would count out a lot of coin for Peter's sorry hide. Peter himself hopes he'll be sold at a loss, and certainly intends to make anyone who bought him sorry for doing so. And he can, easily, once the collar is off him. They only caught him because he hit his head badly when the slavers' maona rammed Peter's own ship, and they put the bronze collar on him while he was unconscious. Not that they imagined how strong he was, they just put it on all _slaves_ as a precaution.

Lost in feverish thought, Peter didn't notice at first when they reached the top of the cliff. But then a stick pushed him to turn and he did, mindlessly, and felt almost disoriented by the sight before him. A ribbon of light, not golden but bright, pure light like that of a glowworm, two rows of matched mounted lanterns lining a path paved in white marble, towards... a palace? A much bigger palace than the ones of the Turkish merchants in Crete that Peter had visited on trips with Uncle Ben, but still recognizably in the same style.

He makes his way along the lit path, feeling both more alert and more like he's dreaming than ever. The lanterns don't contain fire, but glow nonetheless through some magic Peter isn't familiar with. It's so fascinating he almost forgets what comes next, and when they shove him in through a doorway and into a cold, bare brick room with a pit with draining grates on the floor, Peter isn't anything close to ready. Though how can anyone ever be ready to become a possession?

There is only one man in the room, not a single servant or a bodyguard to be seen, and no shadows for them to hide in. The man is tall, blond, and wears the distinctive kaftan of a sihirbaz. No wonder he thought he didn't need any protection, though why a court magician is dealing with the acquisition of slaves is anyone's guess.

The captain of the slave ship steps forward, nearly knocking Peter over in his haste, half-bent in obsequiousness. "Most exalted-"

"Is this him?" interrupts the sihirbaz.

"The young Venetian merchant princeling, just as you-" continues the captain, but it seems to be his lot to not finish a single sentence in this exchange. The sihirbaz raises his hands, clad in bronze-plated gloves, and the man's voice cuts off with fear. 

But he's not the one who should fear any spell. Peter is.

The sihirbaz casts some spell over Peter, the bronze glowing briefly with the force of the magic, and Peter can feel the wave of the spell from the crown of his head to the heels of his boots.

All of a sudden, the magician faces the captain for the first time. His dismissive disinterest has been replaced with icy displeasure.

"There was blood in his mouth," he demands.

"My men, he bit one... it wasn't his blood, he was untouched, just like Your Wisdom ordered..."

There are a few more seconds of tension, Peter wondering if anyone's about to get killed, including Peter himself for being spoiled goods, but then the magician throws a purse at the captain. It's such an unexpected gesture that the man barely manages to catch it, looking astonished.

The magician waves dismissively, and the slavers bow and scrape as they walk backwards out the door with a litany of "most generous", "most exalted", and "may God give you and the Sultan many days".

Peter and the magician are left alone.

Peter tries not to show weakness. Standing alone requires an effort, but Peter tries to straighten up still more. He stares at the magician from under his matted hair, trying not to show fear. He's in the court, he's been bought by someone of the court, possibly bought to be part of the palace staff. What do they want him for, did they try to acquire him in particular, _will they castrate him,_ the thoughts keeps racing in Peter's tired mind.

As if he can read his thoughts, the magician gives Peter a thin smile.

"Is it true," he says conversationally, his dangerous hands held behind his back. "That your uncle paid no less than _twelve_ Bulgar charmweavers, their famous spiders, to weave a spell into your skin that would make you invulnerable and as strong as a dozen wild bulls?"

Peter thinks through his options. He can't see what he can win by denying. He's lost the element of surprise anyway.

"It was only one charmweaver. But she was very powerful," Peter answers reluctantly.

Very powerful, and also very untrained. Wanda had fled the Ottoman Empire and the master who'd ordered her body waxed at twelve before he could make use of it, and she'd used her emerging magical gifts to make a living since then. The weave had gone wrong and the protection she was hired to give Peter came off as something much stronger, something even she didn't know she was capable of.

That happened less than a year ago, and Peter imagined few people knew about it. He was clearly wrong.

"Tell me, have you had the opportunity to find out if the charm protects you from poisons? Because rumor has it, your family made sure to procure the most expensive and reliable ones for you."

"They're not my family," Peter throws back, unable to keep silent. The sihirbaz smiles again, rather like a pike with a juicy fish in its sights.

"They are the Doge's family. The first family in Venice. Your aunt's birth relations?" The sihirbaz says calmly, taking several steps as he speaks until he's at the edge of the shallow pit Peter's standing in. "Perhaps God favors you, and that's why he gave you this opportunity to save yourself."

He makes a pause, as if he expects Peter to ask "what opportunity" but Peter stubbornly keeps silent. The sihirbaz sighs.

"My esteemed padishah," he begins, making an elaborate gesture of respect with one hand even though there's no one here to see it but Peter, who doesn't esteem the old lech at all. "Has long wished to secure the safety of his only surviving son, and as such the vali ahad."

Peter thinks he begins to understand where this is getting, and despite himself he feels a dangerous tendril of hope unfurl in his heart. The Ottoman Imperial Prince, as they called him in Venice, was known as a traveler with an interest in magic and science. He'd practically ran away from the capital more than once, in defiance of his father who'd have liked to keep him safe to ensure the succession, and who couldn't seriously discipline him because for all his concubines and slaves he'd only ever begotten a handful of daughters, and no children at all for many years. His son was also sly enough to make sure not to sire any children of his own, because if the Sultan had grandsons from the direct line that would make the Imperial Prince expendable.

Seeing Peter's interest, the sihirbaz gets to the point. "An invulnerable... companion would go a long way towards easing his Imperial Majesty's troubled mind. Provided such a man could be trusted."

Peter thinks this over, his tired brain doing his best to decode the meaning. They probably wouldn't castrate him, they wouldn't risk breaking the weave by chopping bits off Peter, but they'd make him convert and swear a magical oath. So at least he wouldn't be a slave. Except...

Despair rises in him again. A magical oath is impossible to get out of, as far as Peter knows. He can't refuse, then he'd be an expensive and likely embarrassing disappointment. If the Sultan had tasked this sihirbaz with finding a bodyguard for his son, and the sihirbaz failed, the Sultan would be very displeased with the sihirbaz, and the sihirbaz would in all probability take out the weight of the Sultan's displeasure on Peter. If they don't just torture him to make him say yes in the first place.

Peter takes a moment to mourn the chance of escape, the hope that they'd underestimate him and he'd be able to escape before his first night as a slave was through. Wanda's charm wouldn't show on any scan for innate magic, and as far as Peter knows anywhere but the palace nobody checks slaves for elaborate permanent charm webs like Peter's.

But that is impossible now, and there really is no choice.

"I'll do whatever it takes," Peter answers eventually. "To reassure the... esteemed padishah that I'll be loyal to his line."

* * *

Tony hasn't slept in his own quarters in days, even though he's been back home for less than a week. The highest point of the palace houses his father's private quarters, and then the closer the member of the family to the seat of power, the higher rooms they occupy. Tony is as close to His Radiance as can be, and therefore from his windows he can survey the whole sprawling white structure of the palace, and then the city and sea beyond.

Only he's always loved the gardens better. When she still lived, his mother sometimes begged off a night with Tony in one of the garden pavilions - a great sign of the Sultan's trust, even with all the guard stationed around it for the occasion, and around the outer wall in every occasion. She'd sing and talk to Tony in her old language, and the melody of her voice is what Tony remembers best about her, mixed with the song of the crickets and the whisper of wind through the flowering bushes beneath the open windows.

These days he makes use of the pavilions much more often, but for very different purposes. One of his workshops is in one, and when he isn't working and doesn't have inescapable court obligations, this is where he comes to drink and smoke until he passes out in a pile of pillows, and where he brings his few genuine friends. It's a refuge.

So it's not even deliberate that he doesn't return to his quarters on the night that Jarvis informs him there's a surprise waiting there for Tony. It's probably a new gift, a piece of tribute or loot of some land having the fortune to be ruled by his father (Tony sympathizes, he's shared this great fortune all his life). Nothing urgent.

Only the next day, after the council of viziers convenes in the great chamber, Jarvis stops Tony and insists, in the necessary deferential way but still insists, that Tony visit his quarters. Jarvis is speaking as the housemaster of the palace, not as one of the few people here Tony would consider friends.

Curiosity gets the better of Tony, and that evening he dismisses early his usual entourage of spies, hangers-on, secretaries and Gardeners, until he alone steps through the magical barrier that covers his threshold in a shimmering film stronger than any steel.

Tony's private rooms are ordered in a row facing the courtyard and the sea, while his reception rooms mirror them exactly, except they face the city. The two twinned sets of rooms have different entrances, but the proximity allows Tony total privacy here during the night, the more so the deeper he goes, room through room, towards his bedroom. Not even the sound of a tamburra disturbs the silence, not even the crickets feel welcome to hold a concert here.

Tony passes through a sitting room, then his library, his private cabinet, then a dressing room. All the curtains have been drawn closed, all the brazier tables filled with coal, and all the lamps lit, the new elektron lamps Tony designed, ready to wastefully burn all night even if Tony didn't so much as step foot in here. Rather than cozy it feels strange, like an enchanted, abandoned palace full of ghosts.

But Tony doesn't believe in ghosts, and so he moves on. The next room is his bedroom, and beyond that only his private bath. Maybe he'll make use of it tonight, after he's inspected his mysterious present.

He pulls aside the last curtain, whistling as he does so, and on the other side of it a strange boy sits startled up in Tony's bed.


End file.
